


Nowhere Left but Here

by ladywilde



Category: Heroes - Fandom
Genre: Angst, Dark, M/M, Slash, mylar
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-04-05
Updated: 2010-04-05
Packaged: 2017-10-08 17:59:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/78081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladywilde/pseuds/ladywilde
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Future fic. Mohinder tries to outrun a past and a relationship that refuses to die.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nowhere Left but Here

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Written for piping_hot for Sweet Charity.](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Written+for+piping_hot+for+Sweet+Charity.).



Nowhere Left but Here   
Summary: Future fic. Mohinder tries to outrun a past and a relationship that refuses to die.  
Pairing: Mohinder x Sylar, Mohinder x OMC's  
Other characters: Bennet, Peter  
Rating: R  
Warnings: angst, m/m sexuality, language  
Word Count: 5,140  
AN: Written for piping_hot for Sweet Charity.

I am so, so sorry this is so late. Forgive me? And for the mission insane table: unthemed 5, prompt: grieve.

Big hugs and thank you's to greyelveneyes for the fantastic beta. I couldn't have done this without her. Also much love to neshel for reading this over and reassuring me that it wasn't crap ;) Love you!

 

***

 

Paris, France

The nights were the worst.

Endlessly long and sleepless, plagued by fragments of memories with no real discernible order. There was nothing left for him to hold once morning came. Not one image to twist and turn over in his hands until it made sense.

Nothing.

Just fear, overwhelming and paralyzing, dragging him down and consuming his thoughts. Any day now, any day now – was the running monologue that trailed his steps by day and obliterated his rest by night.

It could be today or the day after. It didn't matter. Because that was the truth, one day he would find him. This dark shadow that trailed him ceaselessly. Until then, Mohinder was a slave to the ticking hour glass that counted down his day, counting down – to the unknown that rushed up to meet him. So he waited and listened, listened to the sounds of a city being brought to life, spreading out beneath him in somber yellows and blues.

The pieces of the puzzle, sharp and distilled. But no order, only waiting – simply waiting, like him – like this.

***

Miami, FL

The beaches were much too crowded for his tastes. The city itself too gaudy – too everything – but there was safety in this, in crowds. In the bustling noise of indiscernible voices, pulsating music and obnoxious devil-may-care laughter.

It was something to drown out the voice. The words that echoed in his head as if stuck on a loop that never made sense. Lazily, he laid on the beach, sweat-soaked, body warmed by a too hot sun, lounging near the edge of the surf. The sun, warm and bright overhead, felt like a shield, like protection.

The taste of the salt – heavy in the air, tasted like what he imagined a lovers lips would. Licking away the taste, Mohinder found it oddly familiar.

***

Tokyo, Japan

More crowds.

But it didn't deter the specter that followed him. He could be anyone, anytime, anywhere. A black shadow – a strange noise or a stranger's laugh in a crowd. He was everywhere and nowhere

It was in Toyko that Mohinder started to drink. There was always an open bar, no matter what time of the day or night. Always a place to sit with his back to a wall, his eyes ever watchful, ever careful. One drink would become five and five would become ten.

And when he dreamt then, he would almost see his face, almost but not quite.

 

***

Berlin, Germany

The boy he took to his bed couldn't have been more than twenty.

But Mohinder didn't much care, having given up on decency. Money was exchanged – favors asked in broken English. The boy simply nodded and pocketed his money. He may have been young but he knew what he was doing as he slid down to his knees in the darkened hotel room and took him in his mouth.

Mohinder closed his eyes, and let the tension flow out of him – eased by the boy's skilled ministrations, he buried his hands in the boys thick dark hair and was suddenly overwelmed with a horrible feeling of guilt.

Something was wrong.

Mohinder's orgasm left him shaking and feeling vaguely ill. Something like shame started to crawl over his body. The tears started to fall even before he could usher the boy from the room. Sinking down to the floor, he sat there for a long moment, nearly remembering a name.

But he couldn't. He lowered his head to his knees and sobbed.

 

***

Madrid, Spain

The nightmares were always the same.

Dark, shapeless – a shadow. He hovered just out of Mohinder's periphery. Stalking, waiting, prolonging the kill. Mohinder can hear him speak – his words garbled, whispered, just enough to make him crazy.

He runs.

He doesn't know what else to do – but it doesn't matter. Dark alleyways that stretch out towards the infinite – punishing crowds of open, laughing faces; dark woods – where the trees hang low, and roots – inches thick, catching his feet and sending him tumbling to the ground.

He wakes up, soaked to the skin, with a scream lodged in throat. His hands shaking – every corner, of every room harbors this threat, this looming demon that never relents – only torments.

"Just kill me already," he moans, into his hands, rocking back and forth, shaking so hard that the mattress rattles underneath him.

But there is never an answer, just the hushed careful breathing that signals that the chase as only just begun.

 

***

New Delhi, India

He wanders around familiar haunts, seeking something inviting – something that makes him feel less alone. He wants to go home. He wants to see his mother's face, and have her calm him as she did when he was a child, but he can't bear to face her.

Mohinder can't even face his own reflection – that haunted, gaunt look that does not resemble himself – this is someone else, someone who has not slept in months.

Someone who once had hope, but no longer – who is resigned. Is ready, and yet… he waits for him – he is never far behind now. Mohinder knows that he'll soon grow bored soon and reveal himself, no longer content to follow him a few steps back, to lurk in darken nighttime shadows, only watching.

No – soon, the blood lust will take over, and he will come and claim what he has broken down bit by bit. Mohinder isn't ready, but he no longer has a choice.

He never did.

 

***

Moscow, Russia

The cold is something he has never gotten use to – that bitter sting of cold and frost that greets like a fist. Yet, there is something freeing about the blanket of white that covers every surface of the city. The whiteness is strangely comforting, nearly forgiving.

Walking among it in a not-so-warm coat, Mohinder imagines that the cold feels very much like being reborn. He wanders the large, open squares – dragging his feet, taking his time. He is in no hurry to go back to his room, to sleep. The nightmares have changed. Now they are no longer nightmare but haunting dreams, nothing discernible, only mere fragments of a foregone time and place. A place that Mohinder has no recollection of.

Still, they are so real, they hurt.

Images of being in bed with someone – a man, but he can never see his face, never his voice – and it isn't like the others, the nightmares. The times where he is made to submit, forced down to his knees – bent over and taken roughly. No, there is nothing brutal in these visions.

There is only the low rumble of this dream specter's voice and the feel of strong hands entwined with his own – lips that cover his with a fervor that is all too exciting, and he is being made love to with a passion that leaves him breathless. The body above him thrusting into him over again, until he is crying, until he is begging for more.

And somewhere in the midst of that, the rumble of his voices become clearer, sharper and he hears him speak, "You feel so good, so good."

When he wakes up, he is laying in the dark, shaking and sweaty, having spent himself – his semen sticky and starting to cool. For a long time after, he spends the hours trying to place the voice, but he can't.

It's enough to nearly drive him mad. That is – if he isn't mad already.

 

***

Location Unknown

Mohinder has no idea where he is – only that it's dark, and he can't see. He opens his mouth to scream but nothing comes out. The dark is like an abyss – it sweeps over everything. It covers him, pushing him down by a suffocating weight and he tries to move but he's pinned. His mind rebels and spins, and he can think of nothing except utter terror. Terror, so encompassing – there is nothing else.

Then a flash, a bang – one that pierces through the dark, the silence – the noise is deafening and he is still screaming, still trying to claw his way out of his skin. In the midst of his fear – in the center – is his own voice, somewhere in the back of his mind.

God, no, no, please, no

He can hear it. His own voice – raked with disbelief – screaming, but the shrill sounds of his screams start to dissipate – echo, until they become fainter, and fainter. They float away from him, out of reach – leaving only the dark, and the sound of his heartbeat, impossibly loud and thundering erratically in his ears.

Until there is nothing else. No fear and no pain.

 

***

Dublin, Ireland

The man he meets in a pub in Ireland reminds him of someone. Yet, he can't put his finger on it, try as he might.

The fear was back – had been constantly tormenting his nights for far too long now. Mohinder reasons that if he was to sleep at all, he needs this distraction. So when this good-looking stranger came up to him and offers to buy him a drink, Mohinder agrees.

The man's eyes are impossibly dark, and his smile – his smile reminded him so much of someone – someone he didn't want to remember. The man comes back with him to his hotel room. There is nothing the least bit affectionate in what happens next.

Mohinder allows the man to go down on him and then promptly returns the favor. When the man asks to fuck him, Mohinder says something about not wanting to – but the man was persistent. And before he knows it, Mohinder is flat on his back with this man on top of him – when the man came he opened his eyes and staring into them – immense and dark, Mohinder almost said a name, someone he could just barely recall.

The name is almost there, but... "Get dressed and get the fuck off me," Mohinder says roughly, pushing the stranger away.

Mohinder gets up in a hurry and makes a quick dash to the bathroom, slamming the door behind him, locking it. He sits there on the cold tile floor and waits for the man to leave – head pressed to his knee, his whole body shaking.

His world unravels, bit by broken bit.

***

New York, New York

When Mohinder awakened he was in a bed, in a plush room at the Plaza Hotel. His first thought was that he had spent another boozy night with yet another stranger.

Luckily, the nameless, nearly faceless men that he sleeps with never seem to stick around long enough for him to wake up but this one does, suprising him. He isn't his usual type. He's dark, yes, but somehow not dark enough or tall enough.

In fact, he is quite slight, almost boyish looking but it isn't his presence so much that worries Mohinder – it is something about the worry in his brown eyes, or the press of his tight lips, or even the way he is looking at Mohinder with a mixture of sadness and fear, as if he never expected him to wake up.

"Mohinder?" The young man asks questioningly, and for a moment, that look of worry dissipates and becomes one of relief.

Mohinder tries to sit up in bed, and marvels at the strange realization that he is not nude - as is more often the case than not in these situations - but completely dressed except for his coat and shoes – which he can see are neatly placed on the chair in the corner of the room.

"Do I know you?" Mohinder asks.

The boy breathes a sigh, and nods. He steps closer to the bed and sits down next to Mohinder, who contemplates jumping up and running away but curiosity gets the best of him.

"Yes, you do... I'm Peter Petrelli, we're... we're old friends. My god, I thought I was never going to find you," he says.

"You're the one whose been following me?" Mohinder asks, incredulous. He doesn't quite believe it. After all, this man – hell, he's more a boy than anything else – is hardly the nightmare vision he has been running from across the globe.

"No, I haven't..." The man scoots closer and Mohinder pushes back, suddenly afraid to have him too close. He looks down at the hand that lies on top of his own in a gesture he is sure is meant to comfort, but it only serves to alarm him further.

"I don't, I don't understand," Mohinder sputters as the words he is desperate to find get lodged in his throat.

"How much do you remember?" The young man asks him.

Mohinder's mind whirls backwards and away from him in response to the question. Everything starts spinning wildly and he can't seem to hold onto any of the images that assault him, faster than he can catch them. He blinks and looks down at his hands. They are spotted wet – he is crying, slow tears leaking from the corners of his eyes and down his face.

He looks up, tries to speak but can't, and tries again, shaking his head. "Nothing," he whispers, "all I remember is that it hurts."

***

Brooklyn, NY (Three Months Earlier)

"Don't go," Mohinder says, dragging the other man back down on him and kissing him hard. As if to say that if he kisses him long enough, and hard enough, he won't go.

It doesn't work.

Sylar laughs and untangles himself from Mohinder's arms. "Come on, I have to go," he says.

"You?" Mohinder says with a smirk, a smirk that betrays the ice cold feeling of dread that fills him, leaves his stomach twisted in knots. "You don't have to do anything," Mohinder says as he reaches down and rubs Sylar in a way that has the other man groaning and panting into his open mouth in no time.

But Sylar quickly pulls himself together, and reaches down for Mohinder's hand and pulls him off him. "Later, when I come back from this assignment we'll have a week together, and trust me, you won't be able to walk straight by the time I'm done with you."

"That had better be a promise."

"One I'll keep," Sylar says, straightening up. "I'll call you," he reassures and Mohinder nods. "Have a safe trip," he tells him. Then Sylar is gone and Mohinder is alone.

 

***

New York, New York (Present)

"I need you to listen to me carefully," Peter said, and Mohinder could tell that the other man was choosing his words with grave consideration. His dark brown eyes are filled with concern and worry.

"Does the name, does the name Sylar mean anything to you?" Mohinder shivered visibly at the name, but there is no recollection.

He simply stared at Peter blankly and shook his head. "No."

"Think hard, try..." Peter insisted.

"No," Mohinder insisted a bit more firmly, the depth of his frustration starting to creep through. "I have no idea who that is."

"Should I tell you?" Mohinder can tell that the question isn't so much for his benefit as for Peter's own. He can see the man debating with himself.

"I never agreed with Bennet. I want you to know that, Mohinder. What he did to you was wrong. You would have pulled through. You're strong. He was hasty and it cost you your mind."

"Why won't you tell me what's going on!" Mohinder suddenly lashed out. "I have no idea who you are... who any of these people are you keep mentioning ... are... I just want some answers..."

Peter held up his hand, and Mohinder quieted. "Alright," Peter thought a moment and than continued. "Bennet was the man you worked for... and Sylar..."

Peter paused then and bit his lip, looked hesitant to continue, but finally, he took a deep breath and found his voice. "He was the man who murdered your father, Mohinder...he was the man you loved."

It was as if those words unlocked the gray part of Mohinder's brain and heart that had stubbornly refused to reveal itself. The strength went out of him, and his knees buckled.

He slid down to the floor – and sat there clutching his head. The only sounds now where his shattered breaths as the world and everything in it rushed up towards him with the force of a freight train and decimated everything in it.

 

***

Odessa, Texas (Five Years Earlier)

"I said no, and that's the end of it!"

Bennet simply let him rant for a moment until Mohinder ran out of steam and sat there glaring at him. His eyes were narrowed and his breathing was heavy.

"Are you done?"

"Do you think this is funny?" Indeed, it was at least amusing given the smirk on Bennet's face as he sat and listened to Mohinder's screaming tirade.

"No," Bennet said. "I don't think it's funny. I think it's quite sad, if you want the truth. I thought you were a professional, Mohinder."

"I am," Mohinder insisted. "But this is asking too much of me and you know it. How in the hell am I suppose to work with that animal?"

Bennet just shook his head in response. "Easy: we need that animal – as you call him – and the sooner you realize that, the better off we'll all be."

***

"This isn't going to work."

Mohinder turned in his seat to look at the other man, but he wasn't looking at him. He was looking out the car window, staring at the scenery as it whizzed past them. Mohinder huffed at that and turned his attention back to the road; he wasn't going to dignify the other man with an answer. To hell with him. They didn't have to talk to each other.

Still, after several minutes of silence, curiosity got the best of him, as it always did. "What the hell did you mean by that?" He snapped.

Sylar turned to look at him, studying the hard clench of his jaw, and took a moment before speaking. "You, us... we're not going to work if we can't talk."

"I have nothing to say to you," Mohinder seethed, as his grip on the steering wheel tightened.

"That's a lie," Sylar responded. "You have too much to say, that's the problem."

"How clever of you," Mohinder shot back, his tone dripping with sarcasm.

"We got along well enough once before, didn't we?"

"I suppose you are referring to when you impersonated a dead man and lied about who you were in order to get my father's list."

"The same," Sylar was quick to contribute, "but even still... that was still me, Mohinder, I want you to know that."

"And I'd like you to shut up now," Mohinder said cutting him off before he could say anything else. He was surprised when Sylar did just that.

***

"Just don't!"

"Don't what?" Sylar asked, genuinely curious as Mohinder launched into him, the second the hotel door closed behind them.

"Act like, like you own me. Like we're together, just don't."

Sylar thought back to a few minutes earlier when they had been standing at the front desk, checking into their room. The woman had made mention of the fact that the room only had one bed, and asked if it was alright.

Sylar, who never missed an opportunity to get the best of someone, took the moment and seized it. "Oh, one bed is just fine, right, baby?" He said, turning to Mohinder with a wink and a slight nudge.

Mohinder wanted to strangle him. He actually felt murderous with it. The girl behind the counter flushed and went to get their keycard. Sylar, either oblivious or not caring that he had just upset Mohinder, stood there chuckling to himself.

He honestly didn't know why Mohinder was so pissed off. He was just having some fun at the girl's expense. There was nothing more to it, or was there? From the furious way Mohinder was glaring at him, there obviously was.

"I was just playing around," he offered.

"No, you weren't... you actually think you and I will in fact share this bed..."

"I don't want you," Sylar replied, cutting him off. "So stop acting like I do."

That shut Mohinder up. He just stood there staring at Sylar, trying to peer through the impassive look on his face and he couldn't. That made it worse.

"Good," he said. "Good," he repeated.

"You can have the bed," Sylar offered. "I'll take the floor. It's not as big of deal as you want it to be." With that he turned towards the bathroom door, closing it behind him as he went.

Mohinder just stared after him, not sure what to do. He felt incredibly stupid. He had made a fool out of himself. There was nothing between him and Sylar. He hated him. He was only here with him because Bennet had insisted, nothing more.

And if so, why did that feel like only half of the truth?

***

New York, New York (Present)

Peter left him alone.

Mohinder went into the bathroom and shut the door. For a long moment, he did nothing but stand there with his back against the door and put his face in his hands.

His whole body throbbed, ached with this overwhelming feeling of sadness and loss, even though the fragments were few and far between.

The words that Peter had said, had left their mark upon head and heart. He was in mourning. He was running. And not from this awesome, dark specter that did not exist, but his own grief. Grief coupled with a guilt that was he just beginning to unravel, to understand. The cause swam just beyond his reach, and he wanted nothing more than to shut out the dark, nagging thoughts that threatened to unleash a flood of emotion he was ill-prepared for.

The need to know was stronger. He had to know. He had to sort through this mess. He was ready. He was ready to know, regardless of the cost. Regardless of the pain that came with it.

He was ready.

 

***

Prescott, Arizona (Two Years Ago)

They came together as if they had been rushing towards this moment from the second they had first laid eyes on one another, all those years ago. And perhaps they were. This was somehow unavoidable; it always had been. There was no stopping this: this was meant to happen, meant to be.

There was no way around this, and for the time they were swept up in the moment, giving themselves up to the need and desire that coursed through both of them.

"I can't believe this is happening," Sylar kept whispering against his parted lips, as he slid inside him. "I can't believe you're here with me."

Mohinder couldn't believe it either. But yet, here they were coming together, moving against one another as if they would never be parted.

What surprised Mohinder most, as he wound his arms around Sylar's neck and met his body thrust for thrust, was just how easy it was to let himself go It was as if, in that moment, that one frozen in time, that all the hurt and hate and animosity melted away, was transformed.

It was more beautiful than he had ever imagined it would be. He remembered Sylar telling him to open his eyes, remembered the look on Sylar's face when he did. He was overcome with it all, his expression a hazy mix of pleasure and wonder and something else. Something that hurt Mohinder to look at. There was too much truth there.

He was all but sure that his own face must express the same mix of bewilderment and awe, and then he was swept up in the physical sensation of it all. When he came, it wasn't so much a release as the culmination of something, something deeper and more earth-shattering than he had never known.

He had imagined that this would be the end but it was only the beginning, he drew Sylar close, hooking his chin over his shoulder, shuddering through his orgasm as Sylar kept thrusting into him, whispering his name over and over again as he came.

***

Brooklyn, NY (Three Months Earlier)

It was Peter who came to tell him.

Mohinder opened the door for him and immediately knew. He didn't know how or why, but the look on Peter's face nearly dropped him to his knees. He felt them buckle, and he gripped the door frame as he started to fall.

Peter caught him and brought him inside, helped him sit.

"How?" It was the only word he could say. It came out as little more than a moan as he looked down at his hands, feeling his whole body shudder with the realization that he was gone.

"An explosion, there... there's nothing left," Peter said weakly as he sat across from him.

Mohinder digested the news carefully. It seemed impossible, incomprehensible to him. Sylar. He couldn't be dead. Not him. Not this man who had become mythic in his mind.

He had always seemed invincible, impervious to the dangers that everyone else faced. Mohinder couldn't imagine the world without him—a world he had turned upside-down in order to have him.

In order to let go of everything and simply love him and allow himself to be loved back.

He got up slowly and went to the bedroom. He was aware of Peter following behind him, asking him if he was alright, but he couldn't answer.

He stood at the bedroom door and the sight of their bed. The bed they had just made love in the day before hit him like a punch. He went over and sat down at it, his hands running along the comforter for the longest time. His expression was quiet, dazed – the realization sinking in however slowly, trickling in.

He picked up Sylar's pillow and hugged it to himself. The scent trapped inside finally made it real – traces of cologne, his shaving gel, and him. That scent that was both musky and masculine. Mohinder bowed his head and simply sat there rocking back and forth.

"I'll be in the living room," Peter said in a quiet voice from where he stood by the door.

Mohinder didn't reply. He simply sat there, clutching the pillow, and letting his heart break apart.

***

New York, New York (Present)

Peter brought him to the airport, and hugged him goodbye.

"Thank you," Mohinder told him and he meant it.

His memory had not returned fully yet and Peter had warned him that it might never. Even still, Mohinder was grateful to him to have some answers at last. His mind had been a hazy fog of too many questions and not enough answers for far too long now and he welcomed the knowledge that Peter had given him, no matter how painful.

"You should come back with me to the Company," Peter said. "Bennet will be pissed at first, but than he'll be relieved. Maybe there is something we can do..."

Mohinder shook his head. He knew enough now to know that his heart could not handle knowledge of the rest. All he had were a few sharp, fragmented images of a life he could scarcely remember living. It didn't matter. All he wanted now was to go home, back to India. He wanted to go back to teaching, his life – those five years he had lived in the meanwhile had been taken from him and all he wanted to do now was go back.

He wanted to forget Sylar, whoever he was. All he knew was that just thinking his name was enough to contract his chest, the pain brilliant and bold, searing. If he stayed, he would only remember more of the time they had shared together, and he couldn't bear that.

"Please take care of yourself. If you need me..." Peter's brown eyes were full of concern and worry as he pressed a card into Mohinder's hand with his number and address on it.

Mohinder pocketed it with nary a glance. "I will," he said, though he had no intention of doing so and they both knew it.

"Goodbye then," Peter said and hugged him again, a gesture Mohinder returned. Then, without another word, Mohinder turned and, bag in hand, went to board his flight.

It was the last trip he would be taking for awhile now. He only wanted to go home. Leave the past where it belonged and start anew.

***

Epilogue

"Is it settled?"

Peter sighed as he came into the room, tugging his coat off and flinging it onto a nearby chair as he passed it "Yeah," he said briskly, a pause before he added tersely. "I'm not happy about this. Any of this."

"And you think I am?"

Peter sighed and stepped farther into the room. "No," he answered. "I know you're not."

Sylar turned from the window he was standing by, his shoulders slumped and resigned. There were lines etched around his eyes, worry and fatigue. Heartbreak. No, Peter knew this wasn't easy for him. How could it be?

"He'll be okay now, won't he?" Sylar whispered quietly now, more to himself than to Peter. "It'll be okay now," he said again, as if struggling to reassure himself.

"You couldn't have anticipated his reaction to having had you erased. He loves you, Sylar. You – you can't rid him of that so easily."

"I can try."

Peter lowered his head. "Who are you really trying to save here?" He asked, looking up and catching Sylar's gaze. "Just who needed saving here, you or him?"

"I think we both know that answer," Sylar told him. "Come on now, get your coat back on, we've got to go. Bennet called."

With a relucant sigh, Peter went back over to his chair, and slung it on. Once zipped, he turned back to the other man. "Always a fire to put out, huh?"

"Yeah," Sylar said thoughtfully. "Always."


End file.
